Top Tip - Anti Aliasing

[chrisonline]

I tried this myself (Nvidia GEForce GTX 745) with various permutations, but all it did was split my screen in two horizontally! No go . . . so I've switched back to control by the application.

I'm successfully running TS2015 with maxed-out graphics settings, and installing everything on an SSD has virtually eliminated any pauses in the video (as well as making for very speedy loading of the program and scenarios)

Chris

[gptech]

I think a lot will also depend on what in-game settings are in use Chris; if you're pushing the GPU towards it's limits to start with (as I am) you won't get the same result as someone who has a GPU with a bit of *grunt* to spare.
It's definitely worth experimenting with though, none of us have anything to lose by trying!
Personally I've seen no difference between using 32x CSAA and the games settings but that's not to say there's a related setting I should also be tweaking, so if jimmy could post some more details regarding his settings it would throw more light on what's actually in play here.

[jimmyshand]

I tried this myself (Nvidia GEForce GTX 745) with various permutations, but all it did was split my screen in two horizontally! No go . . . so I've switched back to control by the application.

I'm successfully running TS2015 with maxed-out graphics settings, and installing everything on an SSD has virtually eliminated any pauses in the video (as well as making for very speedy loading of the program and scenarios)

Chris

It is very odd how so many people experience a different effect by adjusting this setting. For me, I was running on all in-game settings on absolute maximum, all bells & whistles turned on. I played around with the in-game resolution settings but nothing came close to the effect of switching the Nvidia control panel anti-aliasing to 32. I thought I was running the game at its very best in visual spleandour but I most certainly was not. Sometimes you don't know what you don't know and this tip could prove useful for some because without having stumbled upon a random post the other day, I would have merrily carried on playing with sub-standard graphics, blissfully ignorant of the fact I could have it 10 times better by the simple click of one setting.
There are literally dozens of adjustable settings in the Nvidia control panel so it could well be that a certain combination of settings might cause some people to have success and others to report strange adverse results?

[rosschris10]

thanks for the help with this although i cant see any difference so i will leave mine at default which is controlled from the game it to automatically change

thanks for this though

[sundog]

Thanks for this tip jimyshand. It sounds like we have the same graphics card so I'm definately going to try this out tonight when I get home.

Ken

[smartie38]

How many more times are people going to keep saying nvidea, it's nvidia! Lol

Currently running the highest ssaa via in game settings and the graphics look superb but you need a high end gpu to get away with it as ssaa is anti aliasing the whole image and not just the edges, not sure if csaa does the same thing or not.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

[gptech]

ssaa is anti aliasing the whole image and not just the edges, not sure if csaa does the same thing or not.

According to Nivea face cream's web site CSAA is pretty efficient, or at least when compared to MSAA. SSAA would still seem to give better visuals than MSAA though, the question now to be answered is does CSAA match the quality of an SSAA 'tweaked' image?--and if not, is it *good enough* with less of a performance hit?

CSAA Guidelines

Performance

CSAA performance is generally very similar to that of typical MSAA performance, given the same color/z/stencil sample count. For example, both the 8x and 16x CSAA modes (which use 4 color/z/stencil samples) perform similarly or identical to 4x MSAA.

CSAA is also extremely efficient in terms of storage, as the coverage samples require very little memory.

(http://www.nvidia.com/object/coverage-sampled-aa.html)

For me, I was running on all in-game settings on absolute maximum

Even 3x3 SSAA?

[cvo2010]

I tried this myself (Nvidia GEForce GTX 745) with various permutations, but all it did was split my screen in two horizontally! No go . . . so I've switched back to control by the application.

I'm successfully running TS2015 with maxed-out graphics settings, and installing everything on an SSD has virtually eliminated any pauses in the video (as well as making for very speedy loading of the program and scenarios)

Chris

It is very odd how so many people experience a different effect by adjusting this setting. For me, I was running on all in-game settings on absolute maximum, all bells & whistles turned on. I played around with the in-game resolution settings but nothing came close to the effect of switching the Nvidia control panel anti-aliasing to 32. I thought I was running the game at its very best in visual spleandour but I most certainly was not. Sometimes you don't know what you don't know and this tip could prove useful for some because without having stumbled upon a random post the other day, I would have merrily carried on playing with sub-standard graphics, blissfully ignorant of the fact I could have it 10 times better by the simple click of one setting.
There are literally dozens of adjustable settings in the Nvidia control panel so it could well be that a certain combination of settings might cause some people to have success and others to report strange adverse results?

Is it possible, that You could post a few screenshots, just to illustrate the difference between the different settings ?.

Regards Claus

[gptech]

There are literally dozens of adjustable settings in the Nvidia control panel so it could well be that a certain combination of settings might cause some people to have success and others to report strange adverse results?

It certainly could be jimmy, that's why I keep asking for more details about how you've got your system set.

A little observation too, from my machine: I've never really been able to use SSAAx2 previously but now find I can just about get away with it--whether this is due to a wee tweak in the core programming that's made it a little less resource hungry, or the fact that I'm running on a new, *clean* installation of the base game (with assets and routes from TS2014 copied over) I don't know.

[antonyperks]

I did it too on my lower end system and as an example frame rates have changed on whr from 18fps to 24fps driving from spean bridge to ft bill, and thats just changing aa to 32 csaa in ctrl panel. so i'm happy

[peterfhayes]

Chrisonline

I tried this myself (Nvidia GEForce GTX 745) with various permutations, but all it did was split my screen in two horizontally! No go . . . so I've switched back to control by the application.

Were you by any chance using NVidia Inspector? There is a mismatch between TS2014/15 MSAA settings and certain settings in NVI, causing split, four or even 8 screens to be displayed.

NVI is for me the next step in the AA saga and it accesses quite a few anti-aliasing tools not seen in the NVidia control panel - try the SGSS settings to see how effective they can be in controlling the jaggies on some routes. One caveat for NVI to work effectively as an override in TS2015 we need to find the NVI compatibility code. I've tried about 200 but none have so far been successful - so if anyone out there knows what that code (s) is/are please post it here. The obvious one - is the steam code for TS2015 "24010" (0x00005DCA Hex) but that doesn't work neither do any of the Unreal Engine 2/3 codes unfortunately.
PeterH

[smarty2]

I'm not convinced that setting it to override the applications settings actually does anything? Fired up TS with the settings advised and logically you should be able to turn off AA in-game and let your settings in the Nvidia control panel do its stuff? But it doesn't! Tried TS and the shimmering was awful.

[smarty2]

First picture shows settings off in TS and settings as used by Jimmy in Nvidia. Click images to zoom in. http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/f ... =327104554
Second shows TS set to Fxaa + 2x 2 Smaa And 32 Caa off and everything app controlled. http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/f ... =327106412
Third shows with Fxaa + 2x2 Smaa And 32 Csaa. http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/f ... =327131902

So which is better? Definitely not one, but can you see any difference between two and three?

[gptech]

I'm not convinced that setting it to override the applications settings actually does anything? Fired up TS with the settings advised and logically you should be able to turn off AA in-game and let your settings in the Nvidia control panel do its stuff? But it doesn't! Tried TS and the shimmering was awful.

That's what many found to be true the last time we all had a play at trying to override the game settings with the NVidia ones. It was postulated that even setting a custom profile for RailWorks.exe didn't work because the GameManager.dll was 'running the show' and wasn't affected by the change; then it sort of fizzled out without any further investigation/findings.

Second shows TS set to Fxaa + 2x 2 Smaa

Is that Smaa supposed to be MSAA or SSAA?.... nearly as bad as spelling nIrvana wrong is getting an acronym wrong!!

So which is better? Definitely not one, but can you see any difference between two and three?

2 & 3 look exactly the same to me, but I don't have the best of eyesight anyway. The real test would probably more be how OHLE is rendered, particularly when you're moving---still images aren't the best for detailing *jaggies*, which is what AA is supposed to get rid of.

[smarty2]

Crikey! SMAA!!! Doh, yes Gary SSAA! If one looks at the ladder on the signal gantry you can see the differences and the distant hills quite well especially after clicking the image twice.